Roger Casement: traitor and hero

I just spotted a new article on the BBC’s website about Roger Casement, so I thought I’d link to it. The main ‘thesis’ is as follows:

Author Angus Mitchell, who has written several books on Casement, believes he was not strictly anti-British but anti-imperialist.

“As an adolescent Casement identified with Irish rebellious activity,” he said. “But his real anti-imperialism actually begins with his work in Africa and particularly in South America, which turned him completely against not merely the British Empire but all empires, and he dedicated his life to trying to overthrow empires on every front.”

As World War One broke out Casement felt Ireland should stay out of the conflict, which he saw as an imperial engagement.

The article also quotes Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa’s thoughts on Casement. Vargas Llosa wrote a novel based on Casement’s life, El Sueño del Celta (The Dream of the Celt). To my surprise, one of the posts on this blog that gets a lot of traffic is this one, which links to an article about three literary treatments of Casement, including Varga Llosa’s.

All of which just makes me think even more that I’ll have to get around to reading this: